The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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To bind customers to you through customer service and the customer experience requires what I call ‘‘The Art of Anticipation.’’

Most any business can pull off satisfactory customer service, or at least can pull it off some of the time. But anticipatory customer service is a different ball game, even if it’s played in the same stadium. This step beyond satisfactory is where the magic happens, where you bind customers to you and create fierce loyalty and true brand equity.

Think about it this way: No customer has ever exclaimed, ‘‘Yeehaw—I just had an incredibly satisfactory customer service experience.’’ But if your service truly anticipates your customers’ desires and wishes, your customers will be well on their way to feeling they can’t, or certainly don’t want to, live without you. The problem is, this is not an easy type of customer experience to pull off. It requires accomplishing something that is conveyed well in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company’s Credo: ‘‘The Ritz-Carlton experience . . . fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests’’ [emphasis mine].

Let’s step away now, though, from the world of luxury hospitality and look at a more hectic and fast-paced setting where anticipatory service nonetheless succeeds in making a difference in the customer experience: the Apple Stores, those uniquely designed, staffed, and organized storefronts that have revolutionized technology retailing (in part by their emulation, by the way, of Ritz-Carlton and other great hospitality organizations).

Anticipatory service at the Apple Store can begin for customers even before they arrive in the flesh. With the Apple Store app, Apple allows a customer to schedule an appointment so the staff will be able to prepare for—anticipate—your arrival at the Apple Store and be available for you personally when you arrive.

The results are benefits for customer and company alike. For the company, the benefit is level scheduling of demand, a Lean process principle. For customers, the app eliminates wait times and promises undivided attention, something hard to find elsewhere in retail. Then it gets even more personal.

Employees often make a point of ensuring that the arriving customer’s name is used without the customer having to reintroduce himself, even by employees who were out of earshot of the initial welcoming of the customer: The first Apple employee who greets the customer discreetly passes along descriptive details, such as articles of clothing, allowing other employees along the line to give a by-name greeting to the incoming customer.

Whether or not you make use of the Apple Store app, the in-store anticipatory customer service starts almost immediately upon entering, delivered by a technologically knowledgeable Apple representative who has the requisite passion for both computing and customer service excellence.

This employee predominantly listens to you, figures out what you’re there for, and personally guides you in the right direction. This type of close listening is a key to anticipating a customer’s needs and desires.

Incidentally, if you’re there to pilfer, not purchase (I know you’re not, but it happens), this employee will likely pick up on that as well; this kind of prescreening makes theft in Apple Stores less likely. (Unfortunately, the streamlined design and unusually open layout of Apple Stores does make them appealing for break-ins and holdups as well.)

Asked such probing follow-up questions as you’re moved closer to your actual purchase, you feel heard, known, and understood. The relationship may just have started, but it seems solid and sincere, centered on you the customer, a source of comfort rather than technology induced

One of the more paradoxical aspects of the Apple Store experience is when this close listening leads to a store employee asking if a different item—even a less expensive one—might actually fit you better than the one you originally had in mind. But this doesn’t harm Apple’s bottom line.

Ultimately this counterintuitive approach is highly profitable. Imagine the extent to which product returns are reduced when competent customer service reps—true professionals—help you, the customer, by diplomatically challenging your preconceived, or dimly conceived, purchasing methodology until it truly matches your specific needs. And how add-on sales are increased when the level of trust is this high. Extended warrantees no longer feel like obvious rip-off bait but like solid investments. Additional ‘‘one to one’’ training for $99? Sign me up!

The dreaded ‘‘suggestive selling’’? Now it’s hardly dreaded; it’s even welcome—because the suggestions are anticipatory, they predict what you want before you would know it yourself.When you finally go home, the marketing emails you receive from Apple will be for the kinds of products and services you are actually interested in, because your personal preferences are updated while you visit.

Now, it’s time to pay—and to endure the necessary evil of the exit experience. Ah, but it’s not so evil at the Apple Store. The checkout comes to you: Your new retail friend brings a mobile credit card reader to where you are standing and completes the transaction on the spot. Thus, the final impression you have is as warm as the first: You’re cared for every step of the way, from cradle to credit card.